Birmingham Astrophysics - Rolling Grant 2007-2012
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
The work of the Birmingham Astrophysics & Space Research group aims to improve our understanding of the Universe, and the force of gravity which governs its structure and growth. Our extragalactic studies aim to discover the way in which galaxies, such as our own Milky Way galaxy, have developed from the small fluctuations present in the primordial gas which filled the Universe after the Big Bang, as well as probing the mysterious 'dark matter' which appears to account for over 90% of the matter in the Universe at large. Our knowledge of the cosmos to date is gleaned almost entirely from study of the electromagnetic radiation (from radio waves to gamma rays) which reaches the Earth from space. However, a whole new astronomical 'window' is about to open, based on the propagating ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. Detection of these signals is hugely demanding, but large laser-interferometers are now very close to detecting them for the first time, and the Birmingham group is fully involved in these experiments, and in the plans to move these techniques into space within the next decade. This will ultimately allow us to study the gravitational signals from giant black holes, and from the Big Bang itself. We are working towards the first detection of gravitational waves, but also exploring the new techniques which will be required to turn the study of gravitational waves into a true branch of astronomy.
Organisations
Publications
Rasmussen J
(2008)
Galaxy evolution in Hickson compact groups: the role of ram-pressure stripping and strangulation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Maughan B
(2008)
Testing the galaxy cluster mass-observable relations at z =1 with XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of XLSSJ022403.9-041328
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Spreckley S
(2008)
The period and amplitude changes of Polaris ( UMi) from 2003 to 2007 measured with SMEI
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Van Der Sluys M
(2008)
Parameter estimation of spinning binary inspirals using Markov chain Monte Carlo
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Willems B
(2008)
Probing white dwarf interiors with LISA: periastron precession in eccentric double white dwarfs.
in Physical review letters
Babak S
(2008)
The Mock LISA Data Challenges: from Challenge 1B to Challenge 3
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Veitch J
(2008)
Bayesian approach to the follow-up of candidate gravitational wave signals
in Physical Review D
Hammond G
(2008)
New spin source to search for scalar-pseudoscalar couplings at short range
in Physical Review D
Sesana A
(2008)
Observing white dwarfs orbiting massive black holes in the gravitational wave and electro-magnetic window
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Abbott B
(2008)
Search for gravitational waves associated with 39 gamma-ray bursts using data from the second, third, and fourth LIGO runs
in Physical Review D